Psychological well-being and multimodal predictors of operational safety in heavy-haul railway drivers

doi:10.5498/wjp.120114

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World Journal of Psychiatry

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2220-3206

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Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA

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Observational Study

Copyright: ©Author(s) 2026. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. No commercial re-use. See permissions. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc.

World J Psychiatry. Aug 19, 2026; 16(8): 120114
Published online Aug 19, 2026. doi: 10.5498/wjp.120114

Psychological well-being and multimodal predictors of operational safety in heavy-haul railway drivers

Jian-Hua Wang, Shu-Yi Jia, Kai-Gong Zhao, Ting Meng, Yan-Ming Ren, Xin Gao, Pei Sun

Jian-Hua Wang, Ting Meng, Jiliang Company, Guoneng Shuohuang Railway Development Co., Ltd, Cangzhou 061100, Hebei Province, China

Shu-Yi Jia, Yan-Ming Ren, Xin Gao, Pei Sun, Faculty of Health and Wellness, City University of Macau, Macao 999078, China

Kai-Gong Zhao, Department of Safety and Environmental Protection Supervision, National Energy Investment Group Co., Ltd., Beijing 100011, China

Co-first authors: Jian-Hua Wang and Shu-Yi Jia.

Co-corresponding authors: Yan-Ming Ren and Pei Sun.

Author contributions: Wang JH and Jia SY contributed equally to this work as co-first authors; Wang JH, Zhao KG, Ren YM, and Sun P conceived and designed the study; Wang JH, Meng T, and Gao X collected and organized the data; Ren YM performed the statistical analyses; Jia SY drafted the manuscript; Wang JH, Ren YM, Gao X, and Sun P critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content; Sun P and Ren YM supervised the study and made equal contributions as co-corresponding authors; and all authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of City University of Macau, No. FHW-ER-2425-129.

Informed consent statement: All participants provided written informed consent prior to participation.

Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.

STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.

Data sharing statement: The data that support the findings of this study are not publicly available because they were derived from routine operational monitoring within a railway company and may contain potentially identifiable occupational information. The data may be available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request and with permission from the relevant organization.

Corresponding author: Pei Sun, Faculty of Health and Wellness, City University of Macau, Avenida Padre Tomás Pereira, Taipa, Macao 999078, China. peisun@cityu.edu.mo

Received: February 24, 2026
Revised: March 20, 2026
Accepted: April 24, 2026
Published online: August 19, 2026
Processing time: 152 Days and 20.1 Hours

Abstract

BACKGROUND

Operational safety in heavy-haul railway systems is influenced not only by technical competence, but also by drivers’ psychological and physiological functioning. However, the relative contributions of psychological well-being, cognitive performance, and physiological indicators to real-world operational safety remain unclear.

AIM

To examine the associations of psychological well-being, cognitive task performance, and physiological indicators with operational safety among heavy-haul railway drivers.

METHODS

This observational study included 1117 operational records from 203 heavy-haul railway drivers. Psychological well-being was assessed using a multidimensional questionnaire covering mental fatigue, workload, self-efficacy, stress level, and emotional state. Cognitive performance was assessed using a rotating battery of computerized tasks, including Stroop, target tracking, ligature test, digit memory, BallSport, and Balloon tasks. A composite physiological indicator was derived from routine multimodal monitoring data. Operational safety was defined as full-score vs non-full-score performance. The overall psychological well-being score and other analytic predictors were entered into Poisson event-rate models with offset terms to estimate the associations of psychological well-being, cognitive task.

RESULTS

Higher overall psychological well-being was associated with a lower rate of non-full-score operational events at the driver level [incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 0.80, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.65-0.99, P = 0.040]. In contrast, cognitive task indicators did not show stable independent associations with operational risk across task-specific models. The physiological indicator was not significantly associated with event rates overall (IRR = 0.90, 95%CI: 0.65-1.22, P = 0.510), but showed a significant protective association in the digit memory subsample (IRR = 0.26, 95%CI: 0.09-0.68, P = 0.012). Overall, operational safety appeared to be more consistently related to general psychological well-being than to isolated cognitive task performance, whereas the effect of physiological indicators may vary across cognitive load conditions.

CONCLUSION

Psychological well-being was a relatively stable protective correlate of operational safety among heavy-haul railway drivers, whereas individual cognitive task indicators showed limited independent explanatory value. Physiological indicators may have context-dependent relevance under specific cognitive load conditions. These findings support the value of multimodal safety assessment frameworks that prioritize psychological well-being while integrating cognitive and physiological information in a context-sensitive manner.

Keywords: Heavy-haul railway; Operational safety; Psychological health; Cognitive tasks; Multimodal assessment

Core Tip: This observational study examined whether psychological well-being, cognitive task performance, and physiological indicators were associated with operational safety in heavy-haul railway drivers. Using 1117 operational records from 203 drivers, we found that higher overall psychological well-being was associated with a lower rate of non-full-score operational events. Individual cognitive task indicators did not show stable independent associations, whereas physiological indicators showed a context-dependent protective association in the digit memory subsample. These findings support multimodal safety assessment frameworks that prioritize psychological well-being.